The Cornerstone

by Anne C. Petty

  “How now, sirrah,” Coronzon said in a tone that could only be described as gleeful. “How does it feel to be immortal?”

  Immortal indeed. Kit Bayard ground his teeth. Had he been duped into taking ownership of the stone? Most certainly. But he had to face the fact that his inflated ego and overweening bravado had allowed it to happen. Although he’d asked Dee why he was willing to relinquish immortality so readily, he’d not gotten a straight answer. He could see now how artfully the two had steered his questioning away from that critical point and toward the wonders that awaited him if he took possession. Yes, he’d been a fool, an overreaching coxcomb greedy for power over his own destiny, not unlike his poor protagonist of this week’s production. Was his fate eventually then to follow that of his doomed Faustus? Bayard clenched his fists. Had four hundred years spent wresting life from Death’s pall been a wasted effort? He recalled with revulsion his discourse with Dee’s shade here in this very spot. The answers to his questions were obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

  In a fury, more at himself than anything else, he grabbed the metal thermos, turned on his boot heel, and thudded up the stairs to the lobby, slamming the basement door behind him.

  Chapter 16

  Thursday, 3:00 P.M.

  “Qui non intelli…something or other.” Tom startled at Nanette’s voice, close to his shoulder. “My Latin’s pretty rusty.”

  He closed the store’s only copy of Dr. John Dee’s The Hieroglyphic Monad. “Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat. Who understands not, should either be silent or learn.”

  “Testy old buzzard, wasn’t he?” Nanette laughed. The Rookery did a brisk trade in the writings of John Dee—translated, edited, paraphrased, anthologized, riffed on, and rarely, an unabridged scanned reproduction of an original. “You’re a fan of Dr. Dee?”

  He slid the book back into its slot on the shelf. “Not a fan, just curious. I think he was brilliant in some ways—mathematics and his work on maps and navigation. But I also think he went off the deep end with all the Enochian stuff.”

  “So you don’t buy the angelic dialogues bit?”

  Tom smirked. "He wasn’t talking to angels, I can assure you.” He gathered up a handful of books that needed shelving. Funny how used bookstores tended to be like libraries. People thumbed through books and then left them lying wherever was convenient.

  “Maybe he was hitting ye old absinthe bottle too much.”

  Tom smiled at Nanette in her Addams family makeup and hair. He was going to miss her. “I guess I may as well tell you. This is probably my last day on the job.”

  Her eyes went wide and liquid. “But why? I thought you were happy here. I’d love to pay you more if I could.”

  He was a little surprised. She seemed genuinely upset, more than just losing an employee. He’d tried to avoid getting too close to people, but sometimes they managed to get past his defenses anyway.

  “It’s not about money. I have some family business to take care of. I really enjoy working here. Believe me, I’d stay if I could.”

  “Well, family comes first, of course. I’m sure your parents must miss you. Do they live near Atlanta?”

  Tom studied the books in his hand. “No. I never met my father. Don’t even know his name. No siblings, either.”

  “Oh. So it’s just you and your mom—” He gave her the answer before she could ask.

  “My mother’s been dead for awhile. Murdered, actually.” He was careful to show a neutral expression.

  Nanette’s hand clapped over her mouth. “God, I’m sorry. None of my business! I never should have asked.” Her cheeks were bright red.

  He smiled indulgently. “It’s all right. I knew the person who did it, recognized him from a picture.”

  “Wow.” She was staring at him. “Did they catch the guy?”

  Tom shuffled his boots and stuffed his free hand down into his jeans pocket. “Nope. I tracked him for a couple of years, mostly across Europe. When I lost him, I just bummed around, which is how I picked up German and a smattering of French. Did a lot of poking into museums and libraries. Didn’t catch up with him until right before he died of natural causes.”

  Nanette was transfixed. “That’s an incredible story.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been on my own for a long time.”

  “No wonder you seem so, how should I say this, old-soulish, even though you’re obviously pretty young.” She continued to stare at his face. He wondered what was going through her mind. “Well, I wish you’d stick around. You’re one of the best bookstore assistants we’ve ever had. You practically manage the occult section by yourself. What could I do to bribe you to stay?”

  Tom shrugged and tried to arrange his face into a less than dour expression. “Dunno, probably nothing.”

  Nanette gave him a wan smile. “Well, if you ever come back, your job’s waiting for you.” She turned toward her office, then stopped. “What about Dr. Faustus? Doesn’t it open this weekend? Are you leaving them, too? The hubs and I were going to try to get tickets.”

  Tom shifted his weight. “I’ll be there. The director has something I want, so I’ll stick around long enough to get it from him.”

  Nanette stepped up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You take care.” He nodded and felt an unwanted pang in his chest as she walked away.

  He headed across the store toward the fiction stacks. Why had he opened up like that? He had no business telling her what his plans were. He needed to focus. Maybe it was just the simple, gut-level knowing that if things played out as he anticipated tomorrow, nothing he said or did today would make a hill of beans worth of difference anyway.

  * * * *

  Tom goosed the Harley as soon as he was out on Highway 285 heading south away from the city—traffic thinned considerably once he got off the beltway. With few cars ahead of him, he pushed the bike wide open, feeling the acceleration rumbling under his boots. He leaned forward, cutting down on the wind drag, the trees along the highway flying by in a blur. He had two hours before he needed to present himself at the Janus Theatre, ready to dress rehearse the role of the ill-fated scholar of Wittenberg. For that matter, his own ill-fated life could be seen as a dress rehearsal for what was coming. He would be sorely disappointed if his expectations did not play out as he hoped.

  But that was unlikely. All his inner guidance and heightened sensing told him what he sought was here, in this city and in the possession of this man. Kit Bayard. Tom had no doubt as to who this self-important and overbearing person really was. But he had to be extremely careful not to punch the PLAY button too soon, so to speak. He would just end up getting himself destroyed without taking care of business, and that would be unforgivable. Oddly, he felt no fear for his safety here on the highway as his monster machine hummed its song of raw existential power; he leaned with it into every bend of the road, trusting it completely. He and the bike were one and existed within a cone of here-and-now time that nothing else could touch.

  The bike’s speedometer inched toward 90, with the road ahead all clear. For the next few miles his mind was empty of everything but the engine’s growl and the visceral sense of speed. One last adrenaline rush in his physical body before…

  His mind wandered.

  “‘Tis a wonder indeed. Thou hast not aged a day.” The old man’s rasping, dying voice so long ago had made his blood run cold. Even now he could see every detail in his mind’s eye…a sweltering pestilence-ridden summer in 1609, the iron-gated courtyard choked with weeds, the angry barking of a cur chained to the fence, broken flagstones leading up to the heavy front door. A shrew of a woman, middle-aged and life-weary, had opened it to him on his fifth knock. He’d doubted his guidance at that moment and had been prepared to turn away, but she’d let him in.

  The dark-timbered main hall was bare of furniture save a single ornately carved high-backed chair beside a great stone fireplace against the far wall. He followed the mistress of the house, the man’s daughter as it turned out, u
p two narrow flights of stairs. He saw two rooms at the top of the landing. She nodded him toward the one with the open door.

  “My father lies abed yonder.”

  He’d taken a step forward, then stopped in the doorway, blood thudding in his ears at the glimpse of the white-bearded figure sunken into the bedclothes. The room was hot, and smelt of sweat, urine, and death. He took a step back.

  The daughter laid a soft hand on his arm. “Nay, ‘tis not the plague. A wasting disease, the doctors say.”

  “Aye, Mistress,” he’d answered. “I’ll take naught but a moment t’say farewell.” He’d told her some story about being the son of one her father’s acquaintances from the old days, before astrology and alchemy had fallen into disfavor under the Protestant King James I.

  She flashed him a hint of a smile, which surprisingly lit up her otherwise very plain and careworn face.

  “What is thy name?” he’d asked, out of courtesy.

  “Katherine, an’t please thee, sir.” She’d smiled openly then, her fingers resting lightly on the sleeve of his coarse linen shirt. He read many things in that smile—not the least of which was raw sexual need. He disengaged his arm and went in to face her father.

  He’d stood by the old man’s bed for silent moments, just watching the stuttering breath that wracked the frail body. At last he spoke. “Merry meet, my lord.”

  The old man’s eyes had popped open and he’d stared in disbelief. “How now? A-art thou become an angel?”

  Tom remembered his bitter laughter at this. “Nay, my good sir, thou and thy companion hath made certain that joy would be denied me. And my mother.”

  The dying man had wheezed and coughed and finally got control of himself. “I see it now…thou’rt tied to the stone,” he’d whispered, his amazement naked as the truth that filled his watery gaze. “I ne’er would’ve thought…”

  Tom roared around a curve and another dip of the highway, playing the scene out again in his mind, for maybe the millionth time.

  “Verily, thou’rt the walking dead, e’en like unto the master of the buachloch himself.” Dee’s skeletal hand had reached out and taken hold of him, as if he still could not believe the evidence in front of him. His rheumy eyes blinked in disbelief.

  “How can this evil be undone?” Tom had demanded.

  The bedchamber had grown frigid as a winter’s night, the daylight dimmed as if a storm cloud had passed over the sun. And then with shaking fingers, the Queen’s astrologer had pulled him close to those gray sunken cheeks and told him everything.

  Tom’s attention jerked back to the road. Not far ahead, a car was pulling onto the highway from a side road. A long, shiny, black car with dark-tinted windows and chrome trim around the doors…a hearse.

  An earthquake rumbling began to play counterpoint to thundering, galloping hooves—he could feel his teeth rattling in his head. He throttled back and burned the brakes but the hearse was too close. Tom shut his eyes and braced for the crash…which did not come. The bike was coasting, slowing down with the empty road stretched out for miles. Yet the roaring clatter of iron-shot wheels over cobbled streets filled his ears as a bone-jarring rumble pulsed up through the frame of the Harley. The sensation continued in full force until the bike rolled to a stop onto the shoulder of the highway and he killed the engine. Suddenly all was silent. Tom wondered for a moment if he’d gone deaf while blood pounded in his ears. Two ordinary cars drove past while he sat astride the Harley in shock, breath coming in short gasps as his heart pounded in overdrive.

  Finally, reluctantly, he brought the bike to life again and turned around, heading back the way he’d come. Yes, he was now quite certain that once those words in the play, potent with spellcraft, were spoken in the right context, some serious shit was going to hit the fan.

  Chapter 17

  Thursday, 10:30 P.M.

  Claire was so tired she felt jetlagged. Not that she’d ever actually been jetlagged, but she had a sense of what it must be like. Foggy-headed and heavy limbed, with a feeling that you were moving in slow motion or trying to swim against a current. She’d pulled a very long day at work, starting with a 6:45 A.M. traffic crash and moving non-stop to an attempted suicide, a drive-by shooting, a near-fatal heart attack, and a baby delivered in the backseat of an SUV in traffic. She’d been ultra-focused and single-minded, so Paul would have nothing to complain about.

  Now, with the Faustus dress rehearsal just completed, she slouched in one of the theater seats, boneless, like a jellyfish. Bayard sat on the edge of the stage, waiting for the cast to get their makeup off and costumes hung up, so they could gather one last time for performance notes. Tomorrow it was do or die, but tonight he could still make tweaks in the production. He looked alert enough, but she felt drained and wondered if the others were feeling it, too.

  There was no doubt tonight’s performance was somehow subdued. Everyone had been letter perfect and all the effects worked exactly on cue, but there was a sense of going through the motions, as if people were sidetracked by their own thoughts and concerns. She remembered, too, something Jackie had said about dress rehearsals…that performers tended to hold back a little in final dress for fear of giving too much and then not being able to do as well on the actual opening night. She’d thought that was just stage entertainment folklore, but now it seemed to make sense.

  “Could I have your attention, please? Is everyone here?” Bayard’s voice cut through the low-level buzz of voices as the troupe waited for notes. Stragglers were still coming in, but he ignored them. “All right, then. You know what I’m going to say. Although perfect in many respects, tonight’s rehearsal was what I would call tepid. Mr. Brennan, would you agree?” He turned his attention to Tom, seated on the front row between Addie and Ruben. Tom merely cocked his head and declined to answer. Bayard looked at Addie. “Ms. Murphy?”

  “I think we’re all just a little tired. It’ll be fine tomorrow when the adrenaline gets flowing, don’t you think?”

  Bayard shifted his gaze out to the rest of the company. Claire felt fleeting eye contact from him, but quickly studied the script in her hands and avoided being called on.

  “We have a stellar cast, a top-notch production crew, and possibly the best play ever written. So, what I want tomorrow on opening night is everything you have, no holding back. I want fire and brimstone! Nothing less.” His voice boomed at the back of the theater and echoed in the rafters. “I know that everyone here is capable of delivering such a performance, and believe me, no one is looking forward to seeing it more than I.”

  He wasn’t angry, Claire was pretty sure. This was the coach’s pep talk, trying to pump them up to make damn certain nobody dragged their butt through the show tomorrow. As if that were likely to happen. She knew how much everyone involved in the play was anticipating its opening—once they got going tomorrow night, everything would be fine. But tonight the whole scene just felt very low key. The calm before the storm, she supposed. If she hadn’t been so incredibly dog-tired, she might have cared a bit more.

  Bayard stood up. “Go home, go to bed early, get a good night’s sleep. Curtain goes up at eight, so I want everyone here and accounted for by six. That is all.” With a wave of his hand, he dismissed them.

  Claire pushed herself to her feet and gathered her belongings. She shuffled down the row and into the aisle to wait for Addie by the back doors. Morris joined her.

  “M’lady Claire, were we really that bad tonight?” He looked serious, but she felt there must be a hint of sarcasm in there somewhere.

  “I didn’t think so. Nobody missed a single cue. Not even Lucifer.”

  Morris laughed in a short bark. “The Lord of Hell should certainly be able to get his entrances sorted out, although having him show up onstage unexpectedly does keep one on one’s toes.”

  Addie plodded up the aisle, with Tom not far behind her. “What’s so funny? I can’t believe Morris is actually laughing.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I n
eed a drink before going home and hopping into bed like a good little thespian. Anyone else?” Morris put on his best Mephisto leer.

  Tom shrugged. “Why not?”

  Claire sighed. “Okay, but not for long. I’ve never been accused of being a thespian, but I’m dead on my feet and really do need to go to bed.”

  “One round only, I promise,” Morris said, leading the way.

  They headed outside. The weather had faired and although the air was crisp, Claire welcomed it. It helped her stay awake. Tom straddled the Harley and cranked it to life, then sat with it idling in throaty chugs underneath him. He turned to Addie. “Want a ride?”

  “Oh god, you mean it? Can I?”

  “Sure, why not? I don’t have an extra helmet, though.”

  Addie was already unwinding the scarf from her neck, wrapping it over her hair and tying it under her chin. “Doesn’t matter. Good thing I wore jeans tonight.” She slipped onto the seat behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.

  “See you there,” he said, pulling the visor down on his helmet. The Harley growled and sprang onto the road.

  Morris looked at Claire and shrugged. “Need a ride?”

  She swallowed a yawn. “No thanks, I’ll drive myself.”

  Doyle’s Tavern was crowded for a Thursday night. They sat at a table near the front window, yellow streetlight shining in. After about ten minutes of waiting, Tom said, “Just tell me what you want and I’ll go put in the order at the bar.”

  “Guinness,” said Morris.